Stacking the Shelves #10

Welcome to  Stacking The Shelves!  Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga Reviews and is a meme to share those books, both print and e-book, that have been added to your shelves in the last week/s.

Huge weeks of books this week. Checked out my favourite discount book shop, visited the library as well as receiving via netgalley a book i have been waiting for for most of the year!

Review: (Thanks to HarlequinTeen Australia via Netgalley):

This is book 3 in the Healer series and I have been waiting for this book all year as I am loving this series so far!

Taste of Darkness (Healer #3) by Maria V Snyder
Goodreads  | Book Depository
She's fought death and won. But how can she fight her fears?

Avry knows hardship and trouble. She fought the plague and survived. She took on King Tohon and defeated him. But now her heart-mate, Kerrick, is missing, and Avry fears he's gone forever.

But there's a more immediate threat. The Skeleton King plots to claim the Fifteen Realms for his own. With armies in disarray and the dead not staying down, Avry's healing powers are needed now more than ever.Torn between love and loyalty, Avry must choose her path carefully. For the future of her world depends on her decision.

Purchased :

Checked out my favourite local discount book store this week and had some good finds.

Need (Need #1) by Carrie Jones
Goodreads  | Book Depository

Pain shoots through my head. Fireworks. Explosions. All inside my brain. The white world goes dark and I know what's about to happen.

Zara White suspects there's a freaky guy semi-stalking her. She's also obsessed with phobias. And it's true, she hasn't exactly been herself since her stepfather died. But exiling her to shivery Maine to live with her grandmother? That seems a bit extreme. The move is supposed to help her stay sane...but Zara's pretty sure her mom just can't deal with her right now.

She couldn't be more wrong. Turns out the semi-stalker is not a figment of Zara's overactive imagination. In fact, he's still following her, leaving behind an eerie trail of gold dust. There's something not right - not human - in this sleepy Maine town, and all signs point to Zara.

In this creepy, compelling breakout novel, Carrie Jones delivers romance, suspense, and a creature you never thought you'd have to fear.

Strange Attractors (Quantum Enchantment #3) by Kim Falconer
Goodreads  | Galaxy Bookshop

Set in worlds both technological and fey, scientific and magical, STRANGE ATTRACTORS brings to the events begun in THE SPELL OF ROSETTE to a dramatic and gripping end.

Corsanon′s warriors are a vanished race, defeated in the temple wars long ago ... or so Rosette thought. She changes her mind when the portal drops her in the middle of an armed legion. Before she and Drayco can escape, Teg is injured and the Sword Master imprisoned. The glamour she spins to rescue her father sets in motion a series of events that may sunder Earth and Gaela forever.

Unknown to all, the corridors hide their greatest threat, weaving magic so tight that even Kreshkali can′t see it. A battle ensues and the fabric of the many-worlds starts to unravel. Only one of the Richter blood can put things right, but which descendant will use the spell?

Captivate (Need #2) by Carrie Jones
Goodreads  | Book Depository

He smiles. It's a wicked smile. Kind but not kind. Handsome but dangerous. Feral almost. I can see why Nick nearly killed him, Nick...

I ask again, "Why were you in the road?"

"I was waiting for you."

Zara and her friends thought they'd solved the pixie problem. And they did - sort of. The pixie's are all locked away, deep in the woods. But the king's needs grow stronger each day that he is in captivity, while his control over his people weakens. And it's enough to draw a new king into town. Astley claims he is different. He claims there are pixies who can live peacefully with humans, that it doesn't have to be all violence and nastiness all the time. Zara wants to believe him...until Astley also claims that she is fated to be his queen.

There is no way Zara would ever turn pixie. And she's got good friends who will make sure of that. Besides, she and Nick are so in love they're practically inseparable. But when they very thing Zara wants to protect most is exactly what's at risk, she is forced to make choices she never imagined.... 

Purchased :

Now that i am back at work full time, finding time to make it the library is much harder but managed to make it there yesterday and may have gone just a wee bit crazy :-P

Where You Are (Between The Lines #2) by Tammara Webber
Goodreads  | Book Depository
All These Things I've Done (Birthright #1) by Gabrielle Zevin
Goodreads  | Book Depository
Raised by Wolves (Raised by Wolves #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Goodreads  | Book Depository
Trial By Fire (Raised by Wolves #2) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Goodreads  | Book Depository
Taken By Storm (Raised by Wolves #3) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Goodreads  | Book Depository

Haunted (Dreaming Anastasia #2) by Joy Preble
Goodreads  | Book Depository
Anastasia Forever (Dreaming Anastasia #3) by Joy Preble
Goodreads  | Book Depository

So what did you add to your shelves this week?

Aussie August - Guest Post from Kim Falconer

 Welcome to Day 19 of Aussie August.  Hope you are enjoying the different authors and books that have been featured so far.

Today we welcome Kim Falconer, author of the Quantum Enchantment series: The spell of Rosette, Arrows of Time and Strange Attractors  and the Quantum Encryption series: Path of the Stray, Road to the Soul and Journey by Night.

Kim has kindly offered to guest post on a pet subject of hers: World building and creating new life.  I hope you enjoy and don't forget to comment and let Kim know what you think.

Creating Souls from Scratch

The inspiration for Road to the Soul came to me three years ago. It was like a match strike, lit by my publisher Stephanie Smith from HarperCollins Voyager wasn’t looking for ideas at the time or even thinking new characters. Far from it!



Stephanie and I were going over the ‘proof reader queries’ for my first novel, The Spell of Rosette. It’s a gruelling process of discussing the copyedit questions like ‘do you want this to be a pub or a tavern . . . a cobblestone road or a cobblestone drive . . .’ ‘Rosette’ was nearly ready to print, save for these scribbles and marks still waiting in the margins. We got to page 131, a moment in the story where Rosette stops to collect herself after a panic attack. She sits under a jade statue of a Were-fey, a winged serpent-like creature leaping out of an ‘angry’ sea.

Steph asked, ‘Kim, why is the sea angry?’
I said, ‘Because it surrounds the Southern Continent which is . . .’ I had to think. ‘In trouble . . .’

‘Really?’ Steph was interested. ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Big,’ I said to HarperCollins Voyager’s Associate
Publisher. ‘Big, big trouble.’ I couldn’t elaborate. It was all I
had.

‘I see . . . will it appear in future books? This Southern
Continent?’ she wanted to know.
Pause for match strike. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It will!’

And that was it. The story of the lost Southern Continent and a
magical Were-fey named Quillian had begun.

In the end, the Were-fey statue at Treeon Temple wasn’t
depicted in a roiling sea, but the story had gotten a foothold

and there was no stopping it. The deeper answer to the question—‘Why is the sea angry?’—is now answered in the Road to the Soul and one jade Were-fey has come to life in full
Technicolor.

Were-fey are amazing creatures and like most of my ideas, they began with a grain of truth. I wanted to portray a sentient, non-human being with a sharp mind, agile body and Shakespearian wit. This Were-fey had to be adept in four elements--land, sea, air, and time. He had to be special too, so I made him the last of his kind.
I also wanted him to have a very good memory so I reached pretty far back in the evolution

of life for his DNA. In the swamps of primordial Earth, I
found Archaeopterx, the Greek name for ‘ancient wing’
and the perfect reference for the Were-fey. This first ‘bird’
was a sharp toothed, claw-winged, feathered dinosaur
that lived in the late Jurassic period, 150 million years
ago.
With this image I mixed in the Bird of Paradise for a
brilliant plumage and the Loon for underwater grace and
fishy appetite. Thus was born Quillian, a perpetually
hungry, telepathic, highly vocal risk taker, bonded to the
young apprentice Tryn and the pivot on which Road to the Soul
turns.

I had a very clear picture of Quillian in my mind but it wasn’t until my cover artist, Aaron Briggs, interpreted the depictions that I trusted readers would see him vividly as well. I hope they continue to engage with this character
as book two in Quantum Encryption unfolds its epic journey.
Much speculative fiction is full of ‘made-up’ creatures and environments from Tanith Lee’s Silver, Glenda Larke’s myriapedes, Karen Miller’s Vampire Butterflies and Mary Victoria’s World Tree. It’s one of the things I love most about this genre. What are some of your favourite ‘made up’ beings? What makes them so believable? I would love to hear about it.

Comments welcome.

Images

Road to the Soul by Kim Falconer. Cover illustration by my son, Aaron Briggs
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/books/Road-Soul-Quantum-Encryption-Bk-2-Kim-
Falconer/?isbn=9780732291402
Quillian protecting Tryn from a rogue Lupin, Path of the Stray (illustration by Aaron Briggs)
http://www.kimfalconer.com/aaronbriggs_coverart.html
Archaeopterx the ‘first bird’—a dino with feathers. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/
Loons and cormorants dive down to 45 metres! http://bwfov.typepad.com/
birders_world_field_of_vi/2007/07/underwater-loon.html
The beautiful Bird of Paradise by Tim Laman http://www.arkive.org/red-bird-of-paradise/
paradisaea-rubra/image-G72949.html

Don't forget there is still time to win a complete set of the Quantum Encryption series. Check out the give away here and find out what's been happening and what is still to come in Aussie August by checking the Aussie August Schedule of Events

Aussie August Giveaway: Win the entire Quantum Encryption series by Kim Falconer

Hope you are enjoying Aussie August so far and now we have out latest give away from  Kim Falconer, author of the Quantum Enchantment series: The spell of Rosette, Arrows of Time and Strange Attractors  and the Quantum Encryption series: Path of the Stray, Road to the Soul and Journey by Night.

The latest book in the Quantum Encryption series, Journey by Night is due out September 1st and you could be one of the first people to read it when you win this 3 book set of the Quantum Encryption series.

One lucky Aussie reader will win a physical set of all three books and Kim hasn't forgotten her international readers.  One lucky international reader will win a kindle version of the three books.

Pretty awesome yeah?

So, for you chance to win one of these awesome prizes here is what you need to do.

Fill out the form below ( yep that's it).  Giveaway finishes 11.59 pm AEST Wednesday 31st August 2011.

For an extra entry you can also tweet about this awesome giveaway.  You don't have to be a follower though it is always greatly appreciated

Don't forget to tune into the blog on August 19, when Kim will return with a guest post about World Building and Creating New Life.  This is one of Kim's favourite topics and there was even a panel about it at the recent Byron Bay Writers Festival so you don't want to miss it!

Lastly don't forget to visit the other awesome blogs participating in Aussie August.  For a list of all participating blogs and to find out all the goss visit http://aussieaugust.blogspot.com

Now on to the form: